Mumbai: In relief for motorists, Delisle Road bridge to open by September

Reconstruction of Delisle Road bridge in Lower Parel, on Tuesday. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

Shut down five years ago, the Delisle Road bridge in Lower Parel will finally be completely reconstructed and thrown open to traffic by the end of September, Additional Municipal Commissioner P Velrasu told mid-day on Tuesday. The BMC had missed multiple deadlines for the reopening of the crucial connector in the island city.

One arm of the bridge, from Senapati Bapat Marg junction to Ganpatrao Kadam Marg, towards Parel is currently being used by motorists. It was open to traffic on June 2. The second arm, towards N M Joshi Marg was to be ready by August. However, the rains dampened the BMC's plan. "No work could be done in July because of heavy rain. Otherwise, the work would have been completed by the end of August," said a civic official.

The BMC started the reconstruction work in 2020, and decided to reopen the bridge in May 2022, but it was extended several times. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

MLA Ajay Chaudhary, who visited the construction site on Monday, also said that a BMC official told him they will complete the concreting work and also install the girder in August. "Once the concreting work is done, it will take at least 15 days for curing, I was told," Chaudhary told mid-day.

The bridge was closed for traffic overnight in August 2018, following a structural stability report submitted by IIT-Bombay, submitted after a portion of the Gokhale Bridge at Andheri collapsed on the railway tracks.

The BMC started the reconstruction work in 2020, and decided to reopen the bridge in May 2022, but it was extended several times. First, the deadline was extended to December 2023, then again to May 2023. The BMC then opened one arm of the bridge on June 1m 2023. The cost of the project is around Rs 138 crore.

May 2022
First deadline to rebuild the Lower Parel bridge